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Bioware’s New IP Delayed Until After March 2018

BioWare’s new game has been delayed into the publisher Electronic’s Arts 2019 fiscal year, which runs from April 2018 to March of 2019. EA CEO Andrew Wilson made the delay announcement earlier today during an investor call for the end of the 2017 fiscal year. Three months ago, during a call for the end of Q3 of fiscal year 2017 Wilson stated that EA expected BioWare to release the game by the end of March 2018, which is the conclusion of EA’s 2018 fiscal year. This means that the delay could be as little as a few weeks or as long as a whole year.

In January, Wilson described the project as an “action-adventure, not RPG” title, although he said the game will still have a RPG like character progression system. Today he added that it will be a “live service,” this could mean that the game could mirror titles like Destiny or like Tom Clancy’s The Division setup wise.

“We’re very pleased with the progress of our new action IP from BioWare,” Wilson said today on the call. “The design is stunning. Gameplay mechanics are excellent, and the action will be exhilarating. The game is built around a live service, and through our creative process, we decided to add more to the disruptive new social design for our players. To accommodate that, we are moving the launch date for this project into fiscal year ’19.”

EA’s chief financial officer, Blake Jorgensen hinted that the online features may have contributed to the delay. He said, “We want to further develop the live service component.” BioWare general manager Aaryn Flynn said that the studio that the studio has been working on the untitled game and it’s universe since 2012. It will be the first new intellectual property from BioWare since 2009, when the studio started the Dragon Age franchise with Dragon Age: Origins.